Adult Colouring Book - Survey Report

Colouring book may be closely associated with childhood and kids’ activity. As we were kids, colouring became one of the most frequent activities we did both in school and home. However, adult colouring book seems to be quite popular among Indonesian adult these days. When we were kids, we used to colour in line. But as we grow older, we can creatively colour the book just as whatever colour we want to. Moreover, it is believed that the colouring book can serve as anti-stress therapy and able to help us for having better concentration. Adult colouring book even listed as one of the bestselling book throughout the world. Colouring as an anti-stress has therapy actually had been used by famous psychiatrist, Carl Jung. Therefore, believing that colouring is actually having anti-stress power may scientifically prove. Regarding the power of anti-stress, ability to distract, building concentration, and increasing attention to details, the enthusiastic of adult colouring book remain high. We conducted a survey toward 210 respondents in nationwide regarding their habit on colouring book.

Colouring book might not be very new, but as time goes by it was getting more popular as it is sold in many bookstores. However, up to our survey period, only 50% Indonesian aware about the existence of adult colouring book. Interestingly, from the previous 50% who knows about the book, only half of them ever have real experiences on colouring it.

People colours for different reason. Some seeks any distraction to pass time, while some others may find it is able to improve their creativity and art composition skill. We asked our respondents about their motives on painting adult colouring book. For those who coloured the book, we asked their main motivation, while for those who didn’t, we asked their obstacles. Adults who coloured the book said three different answers when we asked their motives on colouring. Most of them said that colouring would help them to refresh during spare time. The less of them believed that colouring help them as anti-stress therapy. At last, the least respondents said that they have drawing and colouring hobby. We then asked different question to adults who did not colour the book about their obstacles. They mentioned the main obstacles were the price was considered as too expensive and their lack of spare time to do colouring.

Different age tend to show different pattern on finding the source of colouring images. The 20-25 years old were more likely to print images from internet then colour it. In other hand, the 26-29 years old were more likely to purchase the adult colouring book in bookstore. Different finding also be found among the 30-35 years old who were more likely to download digital adult colouring application on their devices.

As we could see in bookstore or colouring application there were many themes of image colouring available. Interestingly, the favourite theme was varying between sex and among ages. Men and women tend to have different favourite theme on images colouring. Men were more likely to colour fantasy themed images, while women prefers abstract themed images.

Different group of age also have different favourite theme. The 20-25 years old were more likely to colour abstract themed images. In other hand, the 26-29 years old prefers animals as their favourites. At last, the 30-35 years old attracted to fantasy themed images.

As people prefer different theme, they also colour on different moment. Compared to women, men tend to have more regular time on colouring. Men are mostly colouring at night, just before going to bed. Women, in other hand, were having no certain time to colour.

Interestingly, people also colour the book in different places. However, their home seems to be the perfect place to colouring the book. More than half of respondents said that they were more likely to colour at home. This answers then followed by their favourite hangout spot, office, and campus.

Sharing is interesting, and sharing our creation is even more interesting. Our survey revealed that women were more likely to post their colouring artworks in social media than men. They were more likely to share their masterpiece. Interestingly, we also found that there were different pattern on sharing among ages. The younger the age, the more frequent they upload their artworks.

Personal motives on sharing the artworks became our further discussion. We tried to compare the motivation of people who uploaded and did not upload their artworks in social media. People uploaded their artworks to social media for two reasons. First, they would like to show off their art creation. Second, they tried to attract others to do colouring, too. In other hand, people who did not upload their artworks to social media said otherwise. First, they did not upload their artworks because they were not satisfied with the result. At last, they considered that uploading means showing off and they did not like to show off.

There is various method of colouring. We asked our respondents about their tools for colouring. Most respondent said that they used colouring pencil to colour the images at the first place. At the following places, they mentioned crayon, colouring pen/marker, and other tools such as water paint as the tools.

At last, we tried to map their spending on colouring book and colouring tools. Most Indonesian spent less than IDR 50 to 70K for buying colouring book. They also spent averagely IDR 20 to 80K for colouring tools. Regarding the brand of colouring tools they frequently used, Faber Castell seems to be the market leader. This brand then followed by Luna Staedtler, Grebel, Lyra, and others.

For more detail you can download XLS report at the button below (bahasa). JAKPAT report consists of 3 parts which are 1) Respondent Profile, 2) Crosstabulation for each question and 3) Raw Data. Respondent profile shows you demographic profiles ( gender,age range, location by province, and monthly spending). Cross tabulation enables you to define different demographic segment preference on each answer.